• Question: do all the pandemic viruses have some kind of similar genetic code,or have similarities with each other?

    Asked by Huda on 14 Jan 2022.
    • Photo: Danielle Nader

      Danielle Nader answered on 14 Jan 2022:

      The coronaviruses (which is the current virus causing the pandemic) all have similar genetic makeup because they are part of the same ‘family’. The COVID19 virus has around 70-80 % similarity with the other viruses in this family, but the remaining % is what makes it so much more dangerous and easily transmissible!

      As for the other viruses like Spanish Flu, common cold, Zika, Ebola – they are all viruses but are not part of the same family, so there is very few similarities with each other. For example, Zika and Ebola both have RNA instead of DNA, but the actual code is very different from each other, which is why they infect different parts of the body and cause different symptoms.

    • Photo: Melanie Krause

      Melanie Krause answered on 14 Jan 2022:

      Hi Huda 🙂

      Great question!
      In the past pandemics have been caused by flu viruses, corona viruses, small pox and a few others. Aside from the fact that they are all viruses they are very different:
      The deadliest virus to have ever existed is actually smallpox which killed over 500 million people. That is a very large DNA virus, while the current coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is a mid-sized RNA virus. Flu viruses are very different from both of them as well… they also infect cells in different ways and cause different types of illnesses. By the way small pox actually doesn’t exist anymore.. it is the only human virus that we were so far able to eradicate from earth by simply vaccinating everyone 🙂

    • Photo: Valerie Vancollie

      Valerie Vancollie answered on 18 Jan 2022:

      No, much as we might wish them too. If they were that similar, than being able to vaccinate against all of them at once would be simpler. And our bodies would be able to fight them off better even without a vaccine because, once you’d had one, you’d be able to fight off the others.

      Different viruses, unfortunately, target different parts of the body and infect us differently. So the coronviruses generally target the respiratory system, while something like Ebola is more blood based.

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